1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to mobility, and more particularly related to incorporating mobility as an intrinsic component of an enterprise.
2. Background Art
In the way that mobile devices have changed consumer lifestyle, mobility is also transforming the enterprise. This space lies at the intersection of enterprise software, networks, and mobile devices. Although relatively new, this space is a rapidly growing business segment.
Not only is mobility becoming increasingly important to the enterprise, it represents a huge opportunity as enterprises unwire. The total worldwide opportunity for mobility—taking into account the services, the infrastructure, the handsets and the glue that holds it together—is potentially $340 billion by 2008.
The various sub-segments of this market are growing at a compound annual growth rate ranging from 8 to 60 percent. The Gartner Group, a leading information technology research and advisory company, has said: “Mobile and wireless technologies will proliferate and mature in the next few years, bringing the Internet and new consumer and business applications to ever more places and devices. These technologies must be at the strategic heart of every organization's IT plans.”
To date, mobility implementations have started at the edge, with mobile devices, and have attempted to work back into the core of the enterprise architecture.
There are many flaws with this approach. For example, using this approach, it is difficult, if not impossible, to ensure consistency of the total information technology architecture. As a result, it is difficult to ensure the integrity of the data delivered to the point of action.
This approach also does not afford a global view of the enterprise, or incorporate mobility as an intrinsic extension of the enterprise infrastructure. As a result, mobile interactions for the enterprise tend to be siloed and disjointed from the enterprise's information network.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved approach for integrating mobility with the enterprise.